A second-order autocorrelator for single-shot measurement of ultrashort laser pulse durations has been set up. It is based on recording the spatial profile of non-collinear phase-matched second harmonic generation in a KDP crystal using a CCD camera-framegrabber combination. Performance of the system is described from measurement of 250 femtosecond transform-limited laser pulses from a passively mode-locked, diode pumped Nd:glass laser. It can also be used for measurement of picosecond laser pulses in the multi-shot scanning mode.

A PC-based control software and data acquisition system is developed for an existing commercial microdensitometer (Biomed make model No. SL-2D/1D UV/VIS) to facilitate scanning and analysis of X-ray films. The software is developed in Labview, which includes operation of the microdensitometer in 1D and 2D scans and analysis of spatial or spectral data on X-ray films, such as optical density, intensity and wavelength. It provides a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) to analyse the scanned data and also store the analysed data/image in popular formats like data in Excel and images in jpeg. It has also on-line calibration facility with standard optical density tablets. The control software and data acquisition system is simple, inexpensive and versatile.

A single-frame X-ray framing camera has been set up for fast imaging of X-ray emissions from pulsed plasma sources. It consists of two parts, viz. an X-ray pin-hole camera using an open-ended microchannel plate (MCP) detector coupled to a CCD camera, and a high voltage short duration gate pulse for the MCP. The camera uses a 10-Μm pin-hole aperture for imaging on the MCP detector with a magnification of 6 X. The high voltage pulser circuit generates a pulse of variable duration from 5 to 30 ns (at 70% of peak amplitude) with variable amplitude from 800 V to 1.25 kV, and is triggered through a laser pulse synchronized with the event to be recorded. The performance of the system has been checked by recording X-ray emission from a laser-produced copper plasma. A reduction factor of ∼ 6.5 is seen in the dark current contribution as the MCP gate pulse is decreased from 250Μs to 5 ns duration.

An electro-magnetic interference noise shielding enclosure for Pockels cells for high speed synchronized switching has been set-up and tested. The shielding effectiveness of the aluminum enclosures housing the Pockels cells and the electronic circuitry has been measured using a high impedance probe and is found to be $\sim 50 dB$. This ensures a noise-free and synchronized electro-optic switching in an Nd:glass re-generative ampliﬁer of chirped pulse ampliﬁcation based table top terawatt laser system.

Solenoid coils with iron jacket (electromagnets) have been designed and developed for generation and conﬁnement of the plasma produced by an electron cyclotron resonance source operating at 2450 MHz frequency. The magnetic ﬁeld conﬁgurations designed using the solenoid coils are off-resonance, mirror, and ﬂat, satisfying electron cyclotron resonance condition along the axis of the plasma chamber. 2D Poisson software was used for designing. Details of design, fabrication, and magnetic ﬁeld mapping of the solenoid coils are presented in this paper.

X-ray lasing through high voltage, high current discharges in gas ﬁlled capillaries has been demonstrated in several laboratories. This method gives highest number of X-ray photons per pulse. The fast varying current and the j x B magnetic force compress the plasma towards the axis forming a hot, dense, line plasma, wherein under appropriate discharge conditions lasing occurs. At Laser Plasma Division, RRCAT, a program on high voltage capillary discharge had been started. The system consists of a 400 kV Marx bank, water line capacitor, spark gap and capillary chamber. The initial results of the emission of intense short soft X-ray pulses (5–10 ns) from the capillary discharge are reported.

A high power (2 kW, CW) magnetron-based microwave system operating at 2.45 GHz has been designed, tested, characterized, and used to produce plasma. The system consists of a microwave source, an isolator, a directional coupler, a threestub tuner, a high voltage break, a microwave vacuum window, and a microwave launcher. These microwave components were simulated using microwave studio software. The low power and full term characterization of the microwave system has been done using vector network analyzer. The system was tested for 2 kW continuous wave of microwave power using glass-water load. The microwave system has been developed to study the microwave interaction with plasma at different operation regimes (Gases: Nitrogen, argon and hydrogen; Gas pressure : $10^{−5}–10^{−3}$ mbar; Microwave power : 300–1000W; Magnetic field: 875–1000 G) and to extract the proton beam current with hydrogen produced plasma. A plasma density $\sim 5 \times 10^{11}$ cm−3 and average electron temperature of ∼13 eV was obtained. This article describes various aspects of the microwave system including design, fabrication, characterization and performance studies of the microwave components.